by Laura Tait
‘Saw her again on the train back from the Job Centre, didn’t I? Except this time she didn’t just perve at me. She came and sat with me. And you know me, Alex – women love my banter, don’t they? So we ended up going for a drink and then—’
He finishes his sentence with a whistle.
This all sounds like bullshit to me, especially as he claims he won’t be seeing her again. I ask him why, trying to prise open the cracks in his story.
‘Because when I woke up this morning, guess what I saw in her bathroom?’
I really can’t be bothered with this. I’ve still got a headache from an hour with my year nines and I just want to get to Holly’s.
‘I’ve absolutely no idea.’
‘Just guess.’
‘Fungal cream?’
‘Worse.’
‘I really don’t care, Kev.’
‘Come on, think – what’s the most horrifying thing you could find in your lover’s bathroom?’
Without warning a cyclist swerves in front of the bus, then flicks his middle finger when the driver honks his horn.
‘Tena Lady?’ I say, prompting the old lady to glance at me sourly, stand up and move to another seat that has just been vacated. I try to appease her with an apologetic smile.
‘Worse,’ says Kev.
‘I give up, mate – I can’t be—’
‘Snow globes.’
‘Snow globes?’
‘About a hundred and fifty of them. From Canada and Lapland and one from Skegness. Weird or what?’
I was wrong. He is telling the truth. Not even Kev could fabricate this.
‘A bit, I suppose.’
‘Alex, it’s scoop-de-loop. Bunny-boiler shit. Fucking psycho.’
The old lady is now glaring at me as if I represent everything that’s wrong with society today. ‘So to conclude, you’re not seeing her again because she collects snow globes.’
‘Correct.’
‘Good. I’m glad you’ve got all this off your chest, but I’m going to hang up now. I’m getting funny looks from someone’s grandma.’
‘Well, if she comes and sits next to you, ask her if she collects anything weird before going home with her.’
I must have wandered into the wrong flat.
This is the girl whose bedroom was a notorious pigsty, her floor quadrupling as a clotheshorse, a desk and a CD rack. She would tell me that life was too short to waste time cleaning your bedroom. Hence my shock at seeing four corduroy cushions balanced symmetrically across the sofa in her open-plan living room and kitchen. A set of matching enamel mugs that look like they were bought at a flea market hang from a rack above a barren work surface. Her DVDs are divided into sections: musicals, black-and-white movies, concerts by bands like Erasure and Take That. The contents of each section are sorted alphabetically (my books and CDs are currently ordered by year of release), and she’s included all shows or films that start with ‘The’ under T. I contemplate correcting her mistake, but she’d probably call me a freak.
The sole deviation from neatness is in the corner of the kitchen belonging Harold. There, soggy bits of cat food mingle with stray pebbles of litter. I open the cupboard under the sink in search of a dustpan and brush when the culprit herself limps towards me and tilts her chin in lieu of a scratch. I stretch my hand to oblige but she snubs it and trots towards the refrigerator, where a note marked ‘Alex Patrick Tyler’ is being restrained by a cat-shaped fridge magnet. I’d forgotten how using my middle name amused her.
I free the note from its feline captor:
Help yourself to tea/coffee. And don’t even THINK about cleaning the mess Harold has inevitably left in protest at my absence. You were going to, weren’t you? Ha, I knew it! See you soon – and thanks again, you STAR.
Holly x
I carefully fold the note in half and place it in the inside pocket of my coat before scooping Harold into my arms and offering her a neck scratch. Within a few seconds she’s purring with a stoned glint in her eyes.
It’s while cradling Harold around the flat that I notice a photo of Holly with a man. It must be Richard. The frame looks expensive and modern, in contrast to her other belongings, which generally have a vintage feel to them. The photo was taken by Holly with an outstretched arm in what appears to be a trendy bar with barely any customers. She is laughing; Richard has his arm crested around her shoulders and is peering into the lens with a pouty smile. A good match for the Holly I’ve come to know over the past couple of weeks, I conclude: professional, handsome and immaculate, and I can see from the bicep resting on her shoulder that he too spends a lot of time in the gym.
I should have guessed I’d encounter something like this and braced myself for the melancholy it would induce, but the jolt doesn’t last for more than a minute or two. Harold and I exchange a smile, though her expression turns a little sorrowful as she realizes I’m saying goodbye. I decide to stay with her for another five minutes.
I glance over the room again, Holly’s world, and shake my head at how neat it is. And meanwhile I’m living with Carl who, I’ve realized, is OCD about not cleaning pots. This morning I couldn’t find a spoon for my cereal because they were all submerged in scummy water, shipwrecked beneath pots and pans and a cheese grater. I can understand leaving dishes – though isn’t it better to do them as you go along? – but why abandon them in dirty water? You’re as good as saying, ‘Hey, bacteria, there’s a party over at my place tonight, tell all your friends on Twitter.’ I know I sound like a killjoy; I know there are more important things going on in the world. But it’s every single day.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, I almost broke my leg getting dressed this morning when I tripped on a stack of books. I still haven’t decided who is liable: Carl for not having any shelves in his entire flat or J.G. Ballard, J.R.R. Tolkien and other authors who released books in 1984 for being in my way. I settled on the first and resolved to look for somewhere else to live. Balls to my deposit.
Chapter Seventeen
HOLLY
Most of my train journey to Mothston is spent mentally kicking myself for my lost opportunity to talk to Richard. I was so close. I’d got as far as standing up and tossing down the pen I’d been tap-tap-tapping on my To Do list for twenty minutes. Grow some balls, Holly, I told myself. Just march on in. Ask him if he has five minutes. Say you need to talk to him. It’s not hard.
‘Does Richard have five minutes? I need to talk to him.’
‘Um, yeah, he’s—’ I stammered at Melissa, who was suddenly in front of me.
‘Great.’ She marched in. By the time she was out I barely had time to say goodbye to Richard.
As the train pulls away from my penultimate station, I try to shake off my feeling of foreboding by gathering my bags and waiting by the door. It doesn’t stop long at Mothston. It’s like they don’t really believe anyone would want to get off there. As ever, I’m tempted not to. But after practically throwing myself off the moving carriage onto the platform, I wheel my case to the front of the station.
Dad’s there already, sitting in his car, reading the paper. He’ll have been there at least half an hour. Early to a fault. I used to share my mum’s over-optimistic approach to time management, but at some point my dad’s influence must have rubbed off because you can set your clock by me these days.
‘So are you excited about the move?’ I ask as we pull out of the car park, partly to break the silence – he’s not a man of many words, my dad – and partly because I genuinely have no idea how he feels. He’d never been as happy in London as he was in Mothston. He got a job with the Met Police to be near my mum – she was doing a design course down there, but it wasn’t a patch on his hometown in his eyes. Maybe he just hated London. York’s not nearly as intense.
‘It’ll be something new, I suppose,’ he says, taking his eyes off the road for a moment to give me a tight smile.
Ecstatic, clearly.
Mum is already at the door in her flour-covered apr
on when we pull up at my folks’ semi.
‘There she is.’ She holds her arms out for me, kissing the top of my head as we hug. ‘Come in, come in – make yourself at home. But not too much at home – it’s not our home any more, ha ha ha. Now run up and get out of your work clothes while I put the kettle on. We had no biscuits in so I’m just baking some.’
Upstairs, I open my bedroom door and step into the 1990s. Red and yellow striped wallpaper on the bottom meets plain yellow on top, split midway by a red floral border. Bang on trend when I helped my dad decorate it. I’d just wanted a red colour scheme but the addition of yellow was the compromise to make it, in Mum’s words, ‘less brothelly’.
There’s never been much point in updating it – I rarely spend time in it. I’ve only ever been back at Christmases – and that’s just the years Max and I didn’t spend it in London by ourselves. Even then it was just somewhere to sleep when I arrived late on Christmas Eve until my dad drove me into York on Boxing Day to get the train back, because the Mothston train doesn’t run on Boxing Day. At least the move will save him a journey.
I look around, and even though the only change is the pile of empty boxes stacked in the corner, a roll of bin bags propped up against them, it feels like the first time in years I’ve noticed its contents. Like it’s all so familiar I stopped seeing it.
My pin-board is covered in photos, curled at the corners with age, and a small but comically chunky television sits on a stand in the corner on top of a VCR player, with videos in a messy pile next to it. The empty case of Friends Series Two, episode 7–9 sits on top of the pile, with Take That and Party visible underneath it. A huge map of the world dominates the wall above my bed, red pins marking the countries I’ve been to and a load more gathered in the bottom left corner, waiting to be placed.
Deciding not to think about packing until morning, I sit late into the evening at the kitchen table catching up with Mum.
‘So she knows about the affair but she’s scared that if she confronts him he’ll leave her,’ she’s saying. ‘You know, in spite of everything, she still loves him.’
‘I see.’ I nod, reaching over to the biscuit tin for my hundredth cookie and dipping it in my tea. I should have brought my trainers to go for a jog in the morning. ‘And does he love her?’
‘Who knows?’ Mum shakes her head sadly, nibbling a biscuit. ‘I think so, but he’s probably never going to be able to keep his ding-a-ling in his trousers.’
‘So what’s she gonna do?’
‘I don’t know. That’s where it ended. It’s on again at nine this Wednesday, so I’ll keep you posted. I’ve made far too many of these, by the way.’ She holds up her cookie. ‘You better take some home or your dad’s teeth will fall out.’
‘Thanks, I’ll take some for Alex.’ She nods and gives me a smile that I’m not sure how to take, so I clarify. ‘To say thanks for feeding Harold.’
Mentioning Alex was an error because now he’s all my mum wants to talk about. If I’m seeing him soon. If we’re going to see much of each other. If he’s single. It’s actually great having him around – life is a bit more colourful with him in London – but I dread to think what Mum would read into this if I told her.
Just then my BlackBerry beeps and, before I have the chance to grab it, my mum notices the name on the screen.
‘Richard? Your boss? Bloody cheek texting at this time. You’re allowed a life outside the office, you know, Holly – you shouldn’t be at his beck and call night and day.’
I quickly scan Richard’s message.
Just about to board my flight gorgeous, miss you already xxx
‘It’s fine, Mum,’ I reassure her, smiling involuntarily. ‘He’s just telling me something I need to do on Monday as he’s on his way to New York.’
‘Oh, I loved New York.’ She brings her hand to her chest. ‘Remember when we were there?’
Vaguely. I was nine when my mum and I went for a long weekend just before Christmas, while Dad was working.
‘All I remember is shopping, and seeing Beauty and the Beast on Broadway.’
‘That’s all we did, love. No wonder your father didn’t fancy it.’ Her smile fades slightly. ‘Anyway, I hope your boss enjoys it while you’re here doing his dirty work.’
I momentarily contemplate telling her the truth. By the time she meets him, it won’t be a secret any more anyway, and she can stop worrying I’ll grow old alone with my cat, and lose any crazy notions that Alex and I might start something up now we’re back in touch.
But knowing my luck she’ll call me at work and it’ll be the one time in his life that Richard answers his own phone. And Christ knows what she’ll say.
So I just tell her not to worry then kiss her goodnight, before she has a chance to imply that the reason I don’t have a boyfriend is because my boss is a slave driver.
Chapter Eighteen
ALEX
Carl is spreadeagled on the sofa when I return from feeding Harold, his dirty dishes still garnishing the sink. I planned to bring it up as soon as I saw him, but in this moment I cannot think of any words that wouldn’t resonate with anal retention. Which is bizarre, because it’s not anal at all. The two of us are bound to catch typhoid or something.
Instead of coming straight out with it, I nurture a hostile expression and restrict conversation to a simple ‘hello’, hoping he’ll sense my annoyance, realize what it’s about and wash up without me having to say anything. But he doesn’t. He makes small talk about a fake blonde he’s hoping to charm into nudity tonight.
‘Sorry to be anal, mate . . .’ I interrupt.
What’s with the anal? This is not anal.
‘. . . but I was going to rustle up some tea in a bit . . .’
‘Rustle’? Who have I become?
‘. . . and was wondering if you wouldn’t mind clearing the sink so I can . . .’
I begin to wonder if I’m doing the right thing. I’d underestimated how awkward this conversation would become.
‘I’m doing a pasta bake. You can have some, if you like?’
This last bit is to show that I’m a cool flatmate really, but it’s superfluous, because after initially appearing startled, Carl says, ‘Yeah, course, I’d forgotten about them’, and trots over to the sink.
I feel proud for asserting my authority. Who knows how long it’ll take me to find somewhere new, but at least I’ve made Carl consider what it means to cohabit. He may never be considerate, but if he’s going to make more of an effort from here on in then I’ll meet him halfway.
I buzz across the flat, resisting the temptation to break into a whistle, but as I enter my room, something is amiss. For the second time today it’s like I’ve sauntered into the wrong place. I gawp at the large object that has been left in the middle of the carpet.
A set of dark wood bookshelves that I have never seen before in my life.
‘Listen, mate, I’m really sorry about the thing with the pots before. I guess I’m still getting used to this flat-sharing thing. I’ll chill out a bit.’
Carl sips his pint before releasing a smile that implies the episode barely even registered.
‘And thanks again for the bookshelves – really thoughtful of you.’
Carl invited me for a night out with his mates in Islington shortly after explaining how he’d noticed the books on my floor and bought the shelves from a junk shop in Lewisham. Several hours later we’re standing in a wine bar with jazz music and low-hanging lampshades the shape of Chinese hats. Not the kind of place you’d find in Mothston – and for that reason I like it. Hopefully Cassie will too. Egged on by Carl and his bacteria theory, I texted her, and it turns out I was right: she obviously had been waiting for me to ask her out in the staffroom.
She arrives just after half-nine looking effortlessly pretty in tight jeans and an open-neck top that makes her breasts resemble something from a period drama starring Kate Winslet – ample yet suppressed, aching to be liberated. I focus on not staring at t
hem as she kisses me hello, and then the two of us head to the bar, Cassie clinging to my elbow as we side-step through the din. When I twist my neck to present a warm smile, the gesture is returned in kind, and it feels like we’re saying something without words, though I can’t quite establish what.
We commandeer a sofa and spend the next couple of hours drinking red wine and talking about how annoying it is when people compare James Joyce’s Ulysses to Jack Bauer’s 24, and how Mr Cotton forced IT to remove the dot from his email address after one of the kids saw it and started calling him Dot Cotton.
When finally there’s a break in conversation I head to the toilet, hypnotized by how well things have gone for me over the last couple of months. I take my place at the urinal and direct my flow at a discarded piece of Hubba Bubba. It’s stubborn, but the little bugger does not bank on me having four glasses of wine in my system, and eventually it succumbs, sliding along the stainless-steel bed before disappearing into the drainage system. Alex Tyler one, Universe nil.
When I return Cassie is staring at her phone, and my buzz is killed by a ludicrous, paranoid thought: she is messaging Ted Rodgers, the PE teacher I’ve seen her with in the canteen.
Spotting me, she locks the device and slips it back into her handbag.
‘What are you just standing there for?’
She pats the seat next to her, and any paranoia is expunged when she tucks herself into me on the sofa. She turns to face me and somehow we both know that it’s time. My face begins to fall in slow motion towards Cassie’s, and she doesn’t retreat or do anything to defend herself.
I try to calm myself, focusing all my attention on Cassie’s lips, which feel cold and sticky, and I submit as she takes a drunken lead, cushioning her mouth with mine, accepting a clumsy stab of her tongue.
For the last few hours I’ve had a nagging feeling that she might be too good to be true, but I was being an idiot. Soon we’re seated in the back of a black cab on the way to her house, and my thoughts turn to all the things that could go wrong. What if she notices my nipples are disproportionately small and laughs in my face? What if I accidentally tell her I love her during orgasm?
